Daily Times

KARACHI: An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Saturday ordered that Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) Rauf Siddiqui’s name be added to the investigation among suspects responsible for the deadly 2012 fire at Baldia Factory.

Acting upon Rangers prosecutor’s petition, the court also ordered Siddiqui to cooperate with the investigators. According to the case’s supplementary charge sheet, Abdul Rehman alias Bhola, who was arrested in Bangkok through Interpol and brought back to Pakistan, during interrogation as well as before a magistrate, disclosed that he along with Zubair alias Charya, and others had set the factory ablaze on instructions of then chief of the MQM organising committee Hammad Siddiqui. He told investigators that this was done after the factory owners refused to pay protection money demanded from them.

The suspect also said that after the incident Rauf Siddiqui allegedly got a case registered against the owners of the industrial unit and then the suspect said that he came to know that Rauf and Hammad received Rs40-50 million from owners to tone down the case against them.

The supplementary report further said that sufficient evidence was not found against Hammad, who joined the investigation and denied all charges.

More than 250 workers had lost their lives in a fire at the multi-storey garments factory building in Baldia Town in September 2012.

The case had taken a turn after Rangers submitted a report in the court claiming that MQM activists were behind the deadly fire. The report prepared by a joint investigation team (JIT) was submitted to the Sindh High Court by an additional attorney general, along with a statement of the deputy assistant judge advocate general of Rangers, Major Ashfaque Ahmed.

Published in Daily Times, December 7^th 2017.